Life, birth, and live-birth : a medico-legal study / by Stanley B. Atkinson.

  • Atkinson, Stanley Bean.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Life, birth, and live-birth : a medico-legal study / by Stanley B. Atkinson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    The rule in WilcVs case, as to realty, applies even when there exists at the testator’s death an unborn child of the devisee (Kelly C. B. oUter in Boper v. Bajper, 37 L. J., C. P. 7). 10 Wm. III. c. 20 decided a moot point an after-born child may take as if born in his father’s lifetime, for by the course and order of Nature, he is living at the time of the parent’s decease, even should the latter be ignorant of the fact (In re Burrov)s [1895] 2 Ch. 497). Interests vest at the child’s live-birth, the rents and profits only commence to accumulate for or through him as from his biithday (m re Bolton^ 31 Ch. D. 542). There need be no limitation to trustees to preserve the contingent remainder to such a child. 12 Car. II.' c. 24 allowed a guardian to be appointed to him. Minor rulings in Thellusson v. IFoodford (4 Ves. 255) were : the foetus may be granted an injunction to stay waste, but only for ten months; he may be appointed an executor able to act on attaining seventeen years. In Somerset House is the will of a Cornishman, one TrefFry (1500): ‘ I bequeath to the byrth being in the belly of Elyn Danyel . . . .’ The Kegency Act (i Wm. IV. c. 2) provides for a posthumous prince. The diction of dispositions has led to many rules of construction: ‘Issue’ means, under the Descent Act (s. 6), ‘inheritable child or children,’ natural children must be specified ; ‘if A shall not have a child ’ embraces one as yet unborn (Pearce v, Carrington^ L. R. 8 Ch. 969); ‘ without issue,’ ‘ leaving no issue,’ means having had no issue who have attained a vested interest (in Treharne v. Layton, L.R. 10 Q.B. 459, a boy lived but a few hours ; In re Jackson, 13 Ch.D. 189 ; In re Hamhleton, 1884, W. N. 157 ; In re Booth [1900] i Ch. 768 ; Be Cobhold, 88 L. T. R. 745, C. A.). It appears that in the absence of a special agreement, a child born during a voyage cannot be charged as a passenger. As to the legal presumption that a woman, be she maid, wife, or widow, is not past an age at which she can procreate and bear children, and the rules governing and arising from such cases, see In re White (70 L. J., Ch. 300) and the writer’s article on Forensic Physiology in vol. 39 of the St. Bartholomew's Hospital Bejjorts. For several valuable suggestions, the compiler of this paper is indebted to Dr. Courtney Kenny.